AUW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nirmala Rao with Adam Tickell

Alinery Lalngilneii Lianhlawng with her scholarship donors, Professor Barbara Einhorn and The Reverend Dr Paul Oestreicher

Professor Barbara Einhorn and The Reverend Dr Paul Oestreicher with AUW scholar Nikita Naik

Research shows that educating girls not only transforms their lives but the lives of their families, as well as entire communities. Here at Sussex we believe that it is important for young people to have the opportunity to reach their full potential, regardless of their background, and it is our vision to help talented young women to become catalysts for change in their societies via a Sussex education.

In a move to realise this vision, Sussex has become the first UK institution to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Asian University for Women (AUW) in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This truly distinctive collaboration has provided many opportunities, one of which is the chance to expand the number of scholarships that Sussex is able to offer to enable AUW students to come and study for a masters degree here at the University.

AUW Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nirmala Rao, gratefully acknowledged this pioneering support, saying:

““I must say a big thank you to the University of Sussex; it’s the first university in the country to have instituted this kind of scholarship.

“We have three students coming to study at Sussex and it will give these students the chance to transform their lives – and to give them access to higher education in a way that none of them will have ever dreamt of.

“I hope at the end of their studies that they will go back to their communities or go onto bigger jobs and hopefully, one day, come back to do a doctoral programme at the University of Sussex.”

Help empower young women through education and support AUW scholarships at Sussex by visiting our online donation page. 

About AUW

Founded in 2008, AUW has a student body of more than 700 women who come from 15 countries. Amongst the students attending the University are young women who used to work in ready-made garment factories, or who come from communities that have been marginalised due to poverty, as well as those from particularly vulnerable environments, including the war-torn countries of Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. Most of AUW’s students are the first women in their family to attend university.

Common to these regions and communities is the need for a new generation of leaders to address long-standing social, political and economic issues, and to make sustainable change possible. Rao confidently believes that the women being educated at the University are well placed to directly address this need.

“These students are – with time – set to become the future leaders across Asia and the Middle East.”

How you can help transform lives and futures

Thanks to external support, Sussex is offering three scholarships to students from AUW, but we would like to offer more. These scholarships not only allow bright and promising young Asian women to pursue a postgraduate education, they help to break the cycle of poverty and disenfranchisement that affects so many women across Asia and in the Middle East.

Highlighting the financial barriers to accessing education that are all too commonplace in these regions, Alinery Lalngilneii Lianhlawng, one of the three AUW scholars currently studying at Sussex, explained that her parents worked in the fields from dawn until dusk, but still struggled to buy school uniforms for their five children. All of her siblings were forced to drop out of education, but Alinery was the lucky one. Her father sold a plot of land and she was sent to attend an English boarding school in a nearby city.

Alinery is now studying for her MBA here at Sussex thanks to the incredibly generous support of Professor Barbara Einhorn and The Reverend Dr Paul Oestreicher, who, in collaboration with the University’s matched funding scheme, are supporting three Einhorn-Oestriecher Scholarships for women from AUW.

Emphasising the transformative impact that her Scholarship has had, Alinery said:

“In my border village in Sangau, Mizoram, India, I was the first female from my community to study abroad and the only person from my family to be admitted to university. Receiving a scholarship for a university education has been an incredible privilege and I have sought to utilise it to the fullest.”

Showing her gratitude to Professor Einhorn and The Reverend Dr Oestreicher, she commented:

“I am going to remember you for the rest of my life.”

Nikita Naik, recipient of the second Einhorn-Oestreicher Scholarship, also highlighted the tremendous impact that her scholarship has had on her, saying that it enables her:

“to meet new people and learn new things instead of worrying how to pay my rent for the next month."

In gratitude, Nikita added:

"I promise I will do it justice. I will make sure I give back to the world what I owe it and more.”

Give other promising young women like Alinery, Nikita and Tanjila the opportunity to give back to the world, and support a scholarship for AUW students at Sussex. Your help will make a huge difference so please make a gift via our online giving page.